Goodbye, My Almost Lover
by shieldmaiden-of-rivendell
Summary: The Doctor slips through a hole in time to have one last adventure with Rose. Ten x Rose
1. Chapter 1

Rose Tyler awoke to the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines. She'd had this dream countless times only to look about her room and find it dark and empty, no Doctor or TARDIS in sight. Only this time there it was, the battered blue box that visited Rose in her dreams every night. She sat bolt upright in bed. If the TARDIS was here the mad man who owned it couldn't be far behind.

The door, which you were supposed to pull but always was pushed,opened and there he was, looking the same as ever, tan overcoat, dark brown suit, battered red trainers and that hair. He didn't look a day older.

"Ello Rose," he said as if it was the most normal thing for him to turn up in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

"How- how are you here?" Rose asked. "You said I could never see you again and suddenly here you are?"

"Every once in a while the barriers in universes kinda shift, they leave holes, holes big enough for a good pilot," the Doctor indicated himself and Rose rolled her eyes "to fly through them."

"So" she said slightly suspicious "have you come to save me or just popped into tell me hello?"

"I've got about, five and a half hours before the gap closes, I thought we could, you know, go do...something," he finished awkwardly.

"Let me get this straight " said Rose, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and crossing the room to stand in front of the Doctor, "you show up in my house, my bedroom no less and expect me to go off on what sounds quite like a date with you?"

"Well, when you put it that way," replied her Doctor, sticking his hands in his trench coat pockets "Yes? Maybe?"

"Then I have to come back don't I? I can't leave with you?" Rose knew the answer, it was the first question she asked when she began working for Torchwood, but she still hoped that maybe...

"I'm sorry-" He started.

What had she been hoping for? Of course she coudnt. "No it's fine" Rose quickly said. cutting him off.

"I thought you know, one last adventure, a better way to remember me then uh, last time."

Five and a half more hours with him why not? "Yeah" she answered, smiling at him and taking his arm, "Allons-y!"


	2. Chapter 2

In a year, Rose would have thought that the interior TARDIS would have changed some, but no. As she stood on the entrance ramp the orange and turquoise lighting, black bolted on chair, multi-sided console with its strange buttons, levers, knobs and for some strange reason, type writers, and grated floor, looked as they had the last time she'd been here.

Time is obviously not the boss of my Doctor, she thought grinning.

The Doctor pushed and twiddled things on the console, first the red hot water knob, then the wheel barrow handle and lastly the blue switches, which did nothing really, he'd told her they were just for effect. Effective blue switches or no effective blue switches the TARDIS performed its usual rocking motion, followed by the engine noise

"Annnnnd here we are!" Yelled the Doctor, "come on then Rose, are you just going to stand there staring my TARDIS like you've never seen her before? Outside those doors is a whole new alien world and you're just standing there!" He threw his hands up in the air "Allons-y!"

""Well I can't go out like this can I?" Asked Rose gesturing to her short night shirt,bare legs and feet.

"Oh right well yes...I seem to always be doing that, appearing in the middle of the night, and dragging people off though time and space. " he considered this for a moment and then answered "Wardrobe, first right, second left... Oh go on you know where it is, hurry up then, all of time and space won't wait!"

Rose found the wardrobe quickly and changed into a pink tshirt, jeans and trainers which were looked like the ones the Doctor sometimes wore.

Might as well match the him, she thought, slipping them on.

He looked up at Rose as she re-entered the console room.

"The Doctor and Rose,back in the TARDIS,as it should be."

Rose nodded.

"Now, Miss Tyler." He continued "Will you do me the honor of escorting you to what ever excitement lies out there, waiting for us?"

"Why certainly, Mr. Smith sir." Said Rose calling the Doctor by his often used fake last name. She grinned back, and took his arm. "Shall we go?"


	3. Chapter 3

They had landed on a world called Plom. It was quite beautiful even with the large, glowing cloud that was terrorizing the town which the Doctor and Rose had arrived in. The cloud was soon sorted by the Doctor, even though his sonic was useless.

"Do you REALLY expect it to have a setting for 'malevolent, glowing clouds' that dump dead animals on town and snatch citizens?" He asked Rose.

The cloud dispersed when it was blasted with several high power fire hoses, leaving the whole town soaking wet but grateful.

The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards the TARDIS saying the part where everyone always thanks him is boring so he doesn't stick around. Night had fallen and the Doctor and Rose lay on his trench coat, gazing at the stars. There are millions of them blazing against the purpley-blue sky, their centers white, each with a different colored ring against its edge. These are many shooting ones, and each time he spotted one the Doctor points to it and said.

"Look! Make a wish, Rose!"

And she laughed and thought"what could I possibly wish for? My Doctor came back."

"How are your Mum, Pete, the baby? Blimey he must be more than one now. How's you job with Torchwood, it's not all shooting aliens is it?" He asked.

Her family's great, the baby, Tony's almost two now,and, she works in Technological Development so there's not any alien or human shooting involved, she replied , slightly distracted because he's laying so very close to her, and her heads slightly on his chest and she his two hearts beating. Which is only the tiniest bit distracting really.

The Doctor told Rose about what he's been doing, enough to fill several history books, about Daleks and the Empire State Building, beings that look like statues until you blink, giant rhino things called Judoon, saving a space ship from burning in 42 minutes, a man called the Master who was another Time Lord and about the companion whose just left him, Martha Jones.

"She was brilliant, that Martha," he stated "but not as pretty or clever as y- other people I've known."

"Where is she now?" Rose queried.

"Working for UNIT, quite high ranking she is too. And, and engaged too." He quickly added. "Yes. Very engaged-. Sorry I'm doing the babbling thing again aren't it?"

"Not really, said Rose "well maybe a little."

"Right yeah...sorry. We can just go back to looking at the stars now." He said quickly.

Then they're both quiet for a bit while Rose thought about his last words to her at Bad Wolf Bay. He could have been going to say anything really such as "Rose Tyler, I don't feel the same." Perhaps "Rose Tyler we can't, you know it would never work. Or just "Rose Tyler, goodbye." In her dreams he would always say the right thing "Rose Tyler-"

Like what happened in real life, her thoughts are interrupted, this time not by a dying sun finally being extinguished, but by the Doctor speaking,

"We should get back."

So they got up and walked back to the TARDIS, holding hands.

"It's like we are two normal people back from a date and he's dropping me off at my house but neither of us wants to go," Rose reflected. She smiled knowing never in a million years would she trade this mad alien stuff for normalcy. Still..

She stepped back into the TARDIS's brightly lit interior. The Doctor dropped her hand and walks toward the console, not looking at her.

"Right, then Powell Estates, London, 2007," he mutters to himself as he spins a wheel and rotates a crank. They fly back through the Vortex, not speaking because they both know this is probably their last time together. The TARDIS lands with a bump and the Doctor strode past Rose,

"Right well back home then."

Of course, the one time the TARDIS lands in the right place it's where she DOESN'T want to be.


	4. Chapter 4

Rose turned around for one more look at the TARDIS's interior, one last look at her favorite place in the entire world. She exits and found the Doctor waiting for her, leaning against a side of his battered, blue ship's side. He looked at her the way you'd look at someone who you had seen their future, seen them be lost of leave or even die. "What had he seen." She wondered. But she doesn't ask. There are so many unsaid words between them, some of them need saying and other are better left, unsaid and unheard. He kissed her on the forehead, then and she tries not to cry because if this is the last time Rose gets to see him, she doesn't want to spoil it by crying.

Pulling away he says "'Night Rose, love you."

Just casually like that. In a tone she hopes is just as casual she answers,

"Love you too."

He hops in the TARDIS, not looking back, the engines perform their usual wheeze, such a beautiful noise and the Bad Wolf is left, once again, alone.


End file.
